Mr. Enter's Memoirs: Alone Together 1/2 2015-?
I’ve made it known that I really hate the conventional sitcom formula. You probably know the set-up. Idiotic bumbling fat man married to a nagging woman who is always right. The man is completely aromantic and the woman is completely asexual. The only time they’ve ever had sex, they’ve conceived children, and the children have destroyed all of their hopes and dreams for merely being there, because ha ha ha ha. It’s well known that the current sitcom formula, made popular by the Simpsons (although it’s been used prior) was originally a parody of older Leave It to Beaver-style sitcoms. And we’ve been stagnating for almost 30 years now with the same trite cliches that have been beaten to death again and again. I figured that we needed a deconstruction of this “wacky” comedy that Everyone Loves Raymond or Home Improvement have popularized, and to showcase how badly this can destroy lives. So, enter the Morrison family. There are three kids--Julie, Oscar, and Grace--being raised by their single father, Jack. Their mother is Claire. Three things are important to know. The first is that Claire is not dead. She is very much alive and will make appearances in the show. The second thing you need to know is that she left, of her own accord and Jack and Claire are not officially divorced. The third thing you need to know is that Claire is a terrible, awful, abusive person. But, not physical abuse. Some of her methods were threatening that if Jack ever did anything against her, she’d make sure that he’d never see the kids again, and Jack wasn’t the only conductor of Claire’s abuse. Oscar got it more often than anyone else. The show… isn’t quite satire. I want to convey real issues and the real results of it, and if there’s anything thus far I regret it would be the comedic edge I’m giving it. That being said, the comedic edge is very, very important on some level: it stops it from becoming melodrama. It makes things easier to digest. It’s just… it’s so fucking hard to keep a good balance of humor and seriousness, like you’d see with certain Simpsons episodes like Homer Badman or Homer’s Phobia. On the other side of things, I have to specifically avoid traps of Family Guy episodes like Peter-Assment or Screams of Silence. In one episode (probably the first after the pilot), knowing that his mother was abusive, sees a presentation on domestic violence that throws out factoids about domestic violence -- namely that it’s stated that boys who grow up in abusive homes are more likely to be abusive. Whether or not that’s true, is largely irrelevant to the episode. Oscar becomes afraid of himself, especially since he asked a girl out earlier that day. That’s very hard to make funny while still handling the seriousness that the situation needs. The best way I’ve found is balancing out with a Julie plot (and I’ll get to her later). A unique problem with Oscar’s plots is… trying to make them not funny. For example, say I want to deconstruct a guy getting hit in the balls being funny. So, Oscar gets hit and ends up getting a testicular torsion, and due to Mr. Whitaker’s stellar advice of “playing through the pain” (granted, you see it so often in the media that it’s a realistic view to take) it isn’t treated quickly enough, it needs to get removed. In any other show that’s easy “comedy gold.” In the real world though, it’s standard procedure for many diseases -- including testicular cancer. Oscar has become highly withdrawn, and while he talks to people he knows, he has a very hard time letting new people into his life. He quite literally has an anxiety disorder that will come to play in certain episodes, and besides Jack, he took the biggest brunt of emotional abuse. Not only that, but he--he and Grace--they go through one of the stages of being abused that you don’t hear many people talk about. You feel like a moron that you ever trusted this person in the first place once their abuse is out in the open and so obvious. You wonder how you could have easily been duped and you feel so bad about yourself and that makes healing a lot harder. Speaking of Grace, she’s in an awkward place for me as a writer. You see, I have many more plots for her than Oscar, Jack, or Julie. The problem is that each of them are like… very serious. No daddy-daughter day at the zoo for Grace. Finding out that Dahlia has an addiction to oxycodone, due to a car crash that was foreshadowed at the end of the pilot. Grace coming across a homeless man who had committed a felony and can’t get a job because everyone still treats him like a convict (even though he’s paid his debt to society). Speaking of that, I need to think of a good felony for him to have committed. Anyone got any suggestions? Grace being stuck with the police officer who wrongly took her mother’s side in a domestic dispute. Grace is disillusioned with the law. That goes without saying. She finds hypocrisy with it everywhere, and she’s very opinionated with it. Although, it was… a major problem in the first few drafts of the pilot. I had to dial it back quite a bit. No anarchist Grace in the actual show. Do Grace’s opinions coincide with my own? Yes, no, sometimes. I mean, in the pilot, Grace is wrong that putting Ralph in jail is wrong. But she goes off the handle at the police officer who didn’t do anything and couldn’t really solve the problem. He’s following protocol, and it seems that Grace will blame people over protocol. She is also prejudiced against police officers. And there usually are two sides to every argument that I’m well aware of. Ralph exists largely to balance Grace’s opinions. I’ll admit, with Ralph, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with. I’m still not overly sure. If anyone was expecting it, I don’t think that he’s going to end up Grace’s boyfriend. They’re going to be mutual friends. I should say this, no Ralph is not asexual. Ralph is hetereosexual. He’s probably going to be one of those characters who “falls into who they are” with more and more episodes. That’s what happened with Talula, from Growing Around, and she turned out to be my favorite character that I’ve ever come up with. Then there’s Julie. Julie is already a fan favorite. She’s not my favorite character, but she is my favorite to write. That’s largely because her plots (excluding her role in the finale) aren’t so incredibly serious. Julie’s plots will tend to focus heavily on science fiction elements. From alternate universes to literally “playing god.” While the “evil genius child” is sort of… overdone, I like the trope and I like working with it. She obviously has the best jokes, unless you count what goes on with their neighbors. I do want to have a balance with her. She’s meant to be a child, first and foremost. Genius secondly, and evil thirdly. And if I’d get deep into her character, she’s more amoral than immoral, like a child who hasn’t learned right from wrong quite yet. But that’s only a stray thought. Julie is there to add much needed comedy. And most of the rewrites have me trying to balance out what she does with what the rest of the plot does. The pilot episode (which I refer to as episode 0 out of 12) didn’t really delve into any specific issues. It was just meant to introduce the characters. 12 episodes, meant to go on the internet, is likely the only place this show could find a home, and I’ll explain that towards the end. I understand that it doesn’t really work to have 1 SUPR SRS plot about abusive relationships to a funny romp about The Godfather told with girl scouts, so it takes awhile to reach some kind of equilibrium. We don’t learn much about Jack from the pilot episode, aside from his unusual parenting style… that he mostly fell into. It wasn’t an active decision. We don’t even learn about his job (he’s an architect by the way). Jack is still trying to rebuild any semblance of a “happy normal” life for him and his kids, and the world doesn’t very much want to let him. His neighbors, the Whitakers, are a very traditional family with more “traditional” values for example, and Nathan just doesn’t think that Jack is competent enough to parent. The world tends to assume that Jack is another Homer Simpson or another Ray Romano, even though he’s risen above that kind of stuff. He often gets hit with stereotypes and negativity. Everything he does is cast in a negative light, at least towards the beginning. Annabelle and the Whitakers learn through their own struggles. Annabelle is Jack’s old friend from high school, and Jack used to have a crush on her before she revealed that she was asexual. Ever since then, they’ve been mutual friends. If there’s something that still has to be rewritten in the pilot, it’s that I need to not… just state her asexuality. (Also, I need to make Julie a little bit older, old enough to be in kindergarten). It’s obvious that the strain that Claire put on Jack’s life made it harder and harder to spend time with Annabelle and they grew a little bit distant. Anna definitely doesn’t know the extent of Claire’s abuse, and is (or was) in a mindset where she didn’t think such things were possible. Then there are the Whitakers. The “traditional” sitcom family, for the most part. Two kids, both parents work (at the start). What I thought of when I came up with Nathan Whitaker was Wilson from Home Improvement, and I decided to deconstruct it beyond all belief. Mr. Whitaker thinks that he’s got a happy family and a happy home, but everyone is miserable. It’s mentioned that Mr. Whitaker uses spyware to snoop on what his kids are doing. He doesn’t trust them, with anything and really falls into the “over-protective father” trope. His advice is stupid, and it’s meant to be stupid. “Conventional wisdom” BS that often gets people hurt. He’s the one who tells Oscar to “play through the pain” when he should have gone to the hospital. Most of all though, he’s sanctimonious. This is an important trait for him to have structurally -- remember what happens when Squidward lost his sanctimonious behavior? However, over time, he will learn one way or the other. Also, as a plus, I get to deconstruct the… lesser tropes I hate with Mr. Whitaker. “Dad, when you coming home?” Okay, let’s do it. His son asks Julie for help getting his father to see more of his games. She uses a mind control ray and he starts staying home from work to see more of his games. That’ll segue nicely into the episode where he becomes a stay-at-home dad and everyone in the family seems to like that arrangement better, but the conflict is the family swallowing their own pride (and dealing with the stigma from those around them. It’ll be a role reversal episode all the way around). And there are other minor characters, like the friends and enemies of the kids. Dahlia and Kurt are the only ones that have particular importance. Both of them each have a subplot that Grace must help them through (or decide not to). Oscar’s teachers are either hilarious, like Mr. Clyne (“And that’s why The Return of the King''is the perfect metaphor for my last marriage. No Gollum was my son in that metaphor. My wife was Sauron.”) Oscar also has a friend or two, and he tries to get a girlfriend. As for Julie. She… doesn’t play nice with others. The series has to go online. I can’t see something like this on television, especially not without the Family Guy/South Park license. Ignoring the fact that many of these episodes would probably be politically incorrect, I need the right of final cut. Some of these issues are incredibly nuanced. In the domestic violence episode, I want to really explore all the issues of domestic violence. Maybe Oscar’s girlfriend has same-sex parents who abuse each other. Not only would that be more nuanced, but it would also fuel the plot better. You could not do something like that on television at this current time. And not to mention, the very setup probably falls into the same category. I need the ability to write about anything and everything. These aren’t going to be conventional stories that you’d find in other sitcoms. And, I know I’m going to risk pissing people off. I mean, an episode where Julie literally plays god (like literally shrinks people down to fit in a doll village and demands to be worshipped, providing people with gifts or punishment based on their obedience) is bound to piss off someone, whether or not it deconstructs how religiosity affects groups of people. The issues that I want to talk about are relevant in the here and now and I do want to question the status quo, but I don’t want to go down the South Park or Family Guy route. I’m making a deconstruction series, like Morel Orel, but a lot closer to reality (except when Julie changes all of reality). Will it get dark, depressing, and scary? At points, but I don’t want that to be the consistent tone of the overall product. I want a message of perseverance. However, 100% continuity is in play. What happens in one episode will carry on into the next (although some time may pass). Every change of job, every scar, every mistake will follow these characters around. It is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to write. I feel that I can be “deep” and “insightful.” I’ve even learned how to do things unapologetically. And my funny, especially my dark funny, has been a mixed bag. Each episode of Alone Together must be all three, not continually and not always at the same time. But every episode must be funny, and it must not make any kind of apologies for any insights that it might have. Obviously special attention is going to have to be made for avoiding the traps that Screams of Silence fell into. I really like the title. The Morrison family is really, alone together in the world. Character vs. society will be a constant source of conflict, as the world either ignores their situation, pretends it doesn’t exist, or in the worst-case-scenario, believes that it cannot exist. But they are all together in this. Even though Grace is going through a rebellious streak, she really does love her family. Harming family is the one line that Julie will never cross, ever. The kids are more or less all Jack has in his life. Only together can they survive. One thing that’s really troubled me was coming up with a visual style. I’m at the point where I could comission people, but the problem is I have to communicate words into pictures. I know that the show is going to have slapstick science fiction. But it’s also going to have more sitcom-style elements. On top of that, I need the characters to express emotions. And I’ve been trying to at least… think of a show to compare it to. I mean, it’s obvious that the show isn’t going to be stylized to look like anime or to look like Ren & Stimpy, but I’d never get anywhere if I’m just crossing off what it ''shouldn’t look like. The Simpsons kind of looks close, maybe an Eddsworld kind of thing. I really need to learn how to draw… if anything to actually communicate this. Category:Miscellaneous